One Minute to Midnight

CHAPTER Four



New Year’s Eve, 1991

High Wycombe



Resolutions:

1. Enter the Seventeen short story competition



2. Lose half a stone



3. Phone Dad at least once a week



4. Sign up for the photography course at the leisure centre



5. Forget about Julian Symonds



CHARLES WAS COMING round for dinner, which really pissed me off. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him; he was actually really nice. It just seemed … insensitive. This, after all, was the anniversary of my parents’ spectacular break-up and there was still part of me that blamed Charles for it. Charles, my mother, myself most of all. Somehow over the course of the past twelve months Dad’s part in the whole thing seemed to have diminished in importance.

Mum suggested that I invite a couple of friends around to join us for dinner; grumpily, I declined.

‘It’s going to be really boring,’ I pointed out. ‘My friends do not want to come round here and watch TV with you and your boyfriend.’

‘Okay then, darling, have it your way,’ Mum replied breezily, which infuriated me further. This was not going my way. This is not how I wanted to spend New Year’s Eve. I wanted to be going out to a party, or at least having a party at home. Actually, the thing I wanted most of all was to have last New Year’s Eve back, a chance to do it over, minus the bloody ending. More than anything on earth, I wanted to be sitting in my bedroom with Julian Symonds.

Julian and I had not spoken since Valentine’s Day. He’d called a couple of times in the summer, but I’d got Mum to say that I was out. I didn’t want to talk to him, ever again. I didn’t want to hear him say that he was sorry, or to tell me that it wasn’t me, it was him. I didn’t want to hear him say that he really hoped we could be friends. It was all just too humiliating, too painful.

The thing was, I should have been over him by now.

‘You only went out for like, five minutes,’ Emma Bradley, my supposed best friend at school pointed out to me the last time I flinched at the mention of Julian’s name. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit … melodramatic? It’s not like you were in love or anything. You didn’t even shag him.’

True, I didn’t shag him, but I was in love with him. And it wasn’t five minutes. It was five weeks. Five torturous, blissful, rollercoaster weeks, the five most intense weeks of my entire existence, the weeks during which I was Julian Symonds’ Girlfriend.

It was beyond my wildest dreams. After all, I’d returned to school a week after the New Year’s Eve party in a state of panic. I was terrified of seeing Julian again, convinced that he would have told the entire school about the party; about my awful f*cked-up family, what a total head case my dad was, and about how desperately uncool I was, with a Gustav Klimt print on the wall and everything. That first morning back, I made my way towards morning assembly with my head down. My entire body tense, I glanced up every now and again to check whether people were staring at me, whispering, pointing, laughing. They were not. No one said anything to me, apart from a couple of classmates saying hello and asking if I’d had a nice Christmas, until I reached the doorway of the assembly hall. Then, just as I was about to enter, I felt a gentle tug at my sleeve, and I turned around and there he was, towering over me, handsome even in the dull grey of his school uniform.

‘Hello,’ he said, not quite meeting my eye. ‘How are you?’ He looked nervous, he was shifting his weight from foot to foot, biting his lower lip.

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, concentrating terribly hard on breathing and not falling over at the same time. ‘How about you?’

‘I wanted to ring you,’ he said, ‘to find out if you were okay. You and your mum. But I wasn’t sure if I should … I was worried …’

‘Dad moved out,’ I said, ‘so, you could have, you know, if you wanted to, you know, called me.’ Jesus, I sounded retarded.

‘God, Nicole, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about your parents. That’s just awful. I feel really terrible about this.’ He looked genuinely upset.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said.

‘It kind of was …’

‘Julian …’

The second bell went, the signal for everyone to get into the assembly hall immediately unless they wanted a week’s detention.

‘Can I come and see you?’ he asked me. ‘After school, some time this week?’

My heart was hammering so hard in my chest I thought I might pass out.

‘Of course,’ I squeaked. ‘That would be … nice. I have piano today and gymnastics on Thursday, but any other day would be fine.’ Christ, now I sounded like a nine-year-old.

But he didn’t seem to think so, he just smiled and said, ‘Great. I’ll come over tomorrow.’

As I walked into assembly, I glanced around again, holding my head high this time, no longer hiding. No longer was I hoping that no one had noticed me, now I was praying that someone had seen. Please, please say someone had just witnessed me, Nicole Blake of Year Eight, talking to Julian Symonds of Year Ten, not just an older boy, but the best-looking boy in school.

As promised, he visited the next day. The day after that, he sought me out during our lunch break at school, he actually sat next to me, at my table, in full view of other Year Tens. That Friday, he came round to the house again. I was upstairs in my room, sulking, because I’d come home from school to find Mum sitting in the kitchen with Charles, giggling like a teenager. So undignified. After Charles left, Mum and I had a row. She said I’d been rude to Charles.

‘Just because I don’t fawn all over him like you do doesn’t mean I’m being rude,’ I said to her.

‘Don’t be like that, Nic,’ she said. ‘He’s my friend.’

‘Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days?’

‘Nicole!’

‘Well, maybe Dad was right …’

‘Go to your room, Nicole,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘Now.’

And I went upstairs and lay on my bed, wondering why I felt the need to be such a bitch to her. I knew she hadn’t done anything wrong.

I was still lying there when I heard the doorbell ring. A few moments later, there was a soft knock at my door.

‘What?’ I snapped.

Mum pushed the door open. ‘There’s someone downstairs to see you,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘It’s Julian,’ she said, and I leapt to my feet in a panic, tearing off my school uniform and rushing around the room looking for something to wear. Mum stood in the doorway watching me.

‘I really ought to send him home,’ she said.

‘No!’ I cried, horrified. ‘Please don’t.’

‘You’ve been really unkind to me, Nic. I’m not sure you should be allowed to see friends tonight.’

‘Please, Mum,’ I begged her. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

She just looked at me, implacable. Then she smiled. ‘The red top, that one we got on Oxford Street last summer. Put that on. You look lovely in that.’ I flung my arms around her neck and squeezed. ‘Yes, all right. You get dressed and I’ll tell Julian you’re on your way down. And Nic?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I would never be rude to your friends. Please do me the same courtesy.’

I pulled on some jeans, threw on the red top and drew a line of black kohl under my eyes. I glowered at myself in the mirror. I was hideous. But there was nothing to be done about it now. I took a deep breath, pushed open my bedroom door and made my way downstairs.

Julian was standing in the hallway. Dressed in black jeans, his biker jacket and Doc Martens, he looked perfect.

‘Hey you,’ he said with a smile, ‘hope you don’t mind me just coming by like this.’

‘Course not,’ I said. As I got to the bottom of the stairs, he reached for my hand. I thought I was going to die. He pulled me closer, glancing quickly over my shoulder to make sure that we were alone (we were – my wonderful mother had disappeared into the kitchen), then he leant over and kissed me on the lips.

‘Even better,’ he said softly.

‘Even better than what?’

‘Than I’d imagined. And I’ve been imagining that since New Year’s Eve.’

So it began, and it was even better than I’d dreamt it would be, too. It was perfect. He was so easy to be around, and beneath that whole cool façade, he had a wicked sense of humour. For the five weeks we were together it seemed like we never stopped talking – about everything: my family, his family, our friends, films, music, art … And I was so proud to walk down the halls with him, holding his hand, or with his arm draped around my shoulders – and he was so cool about stuff like that – he wasn’t like those idiots who refuse to show their girlfriends any affection in public, but once they’re alone immediately begin ripping their clothes off. Julian was happy to be seen with me.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t perfect. Because although he was lovely and affectionate in public, he was nothing more than lovely and affectionate in private, too. Not that I actually wanted to do anything with him (not yet, anyway), but it seemed really weird to me that he didn’t want to. I never ever said anything about it (of course), but privately, I tortured myself. Why didn’t he want me? What was wrong with me? Well, aside from my thighs (flabby), breasts (small), hips (wide) and so on. I tried to reassure myself that he was just being respectful of me, but in my heart I knew this was total crap. I was fundamentally undesirable.

A fact which was confirmed in brutal fashion on Valentine’s Day, a date that I had been anticipating with feverish excitement and not a little anxiety. For the first time ever I was going to get a Valentine’s card. A real one, not one written in my mother’s poorly disguised hand. I might even get flowers. The anticipation was killing me. The post hadn’t arrived by the time I left for school that day, but that didn’t matter. He’d probably give me the card when I saw him anyway, and that would be even better, because then I’d have an excuse to show everyone. It was the complete contrast to the first day of term: me desperately hoping to bump into him, searching him out all day, failing to find him. I hung around the school gates for half an hour after classes, convinced that he’d be along any minute, but no such luck. I went home, deflated.

Until I pushed open the front door, and saw there on the mat, peeking out from under a large, official-looking manila envelope, a corner of brilliant vermilion. My heart leapt. I threw my bag onto the floor and scooped up the mail, flinging the bills and junk mail back onto the carpet. I ripped open the envelope and was surprised to see an impressionist scene on the front of the card: Monet, the artist’s garden at Giverny. Not very Julian. I flipped open the card and read: Dearest Elizabeth, Happy Valentine’s Day. With love, C.

It was only then that I looked at the front of the envelope, which I hadn’t even checked in my haste to get to the card. It was addressed to Mrs E. Blake. It wasn’t for me, it was for Mum. And it wasn’t even from Dad, it was from Charles. Were they lovers now?

Feeling sick to my stomach, I ripped the card to pieces and threw it in the bin, making sure to cover the evidence with banana skins and tea bags. I couldn’t believe it. Nothing from Julian for me, something from Charles for Mum. It was the worst possible combination. I dragged myself upstairs, stuck Nowhere on the stereo, turned ‘Dreams Burn Down’ up to ten, and flung myself face down onto the bed.

I was still lying there, in my school uniform, face buried in the pillow, when I heard the doorbell go downstairs. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. What if it was Charles? What if it was Dad?

‘Nicole?’ I heard a voice call out. ‘You there?’

Julian! I was so delighted to hear his voice, I didn’t even worry about the fact that I was still in uniform, that I looked like hell. I tore down the stairs and yanked open the door, grabbing him around the waist and kissing him until I noticed that he wasn’t kissing me back.

Something was wrong. He didn’t meet my eye as he pushed past me into the house. He seemed agitated, distracted. In the kitchen, I poured us both a glass of juice. He waved me away as I offered it to him.

‘Stick something stronger in there for me, will you?’ he said.

‘Jules,’ I laughed, ‘it’s five-thirty in the afternoon. Mum’s going to be home soon. She’ll kill me if—’

‘Oh for f*ck’s sake, Nicole.’

‘What? What’s wrong?’ I reached out my hand to take his. He pulled away.

‘Nothing. I’m just … I felt like having a drink.’

‘Well, you can’t have one here.’

‘Fine, I’ll go elsewhere then.’

‘Julian …’ I reached out for him again, but he was already heading out into the hallway.

At the front door, he turned. He looked straight at me, unflinching, direct, and said: ‘This is just not working, is it? You and me. You’re a great girl, Nic, but this isn’t right …’

‘Jules, please don’t …’ I said, already starting to cry.

‘Oh don’t …’

‘Julian, I love you.’ It was the first time I’d ever told him that, and I meant it.

‘No you don’t, Nic,’ he said sadly, and turned to go, leaving me sobbing on the stairs.

And that was the last time we spoke. And it was so awful, because although it sounds silly (as Emma Bradley never tired of pointing out), we’d become so close in those weeks together, it was like Jules and I were best friends, which is probably why Emma was always so down on me when I talked about him. So it wasn’t like I’d just lost my boyfriend, I’d lost my friend, too, and that was so hard. He was the one person I wanted to talk to about how I was feeling, the only person who would understand, and of course he was the one person I couldn’t talk to about it.

When he called me in the summer, I was tempted to speak to him, I really was. The thought of being able to chat to him again, to talk about the books I’d been reading and find out what he thought of Kill Uncle was almost irresistible. Plus, I wanted to know if he was okay. That sounds weird, I know, because after all he dumped me, but there had been all kinds of rumours about him at school, and I was actually a bit worried.

He’d been bunking off school a lot lately, more and more as the year went on. At first it was a relief: the fewer chance encounters in the halls at school the better as far as I was concerned, but after a while it just seemed strange and out of character. I knew he had a rebellious streak but I also knew that it meant a lot to him to do well in his exams because he wanted to get into a good art school. Mum, who was still close friends with Julian’s mother, told me that skipping school was just the start of it. He’d been getting into loads of trouble, she said, he’d been coming home drunk or high or not at all, he’d been in fights, he barely spoke to his parents at all. ‘Sheila’s at the end of her tether,’ Mum told me. ‘She just doesn’t know what to do about him.’

Rumours at school were rife: Julian Symonds had got into serious drugs; Julian Symonds was a Satanist; Julian Symonds had become a complete loner, a weirdo, a drop out. Deep down, I was anxious that this was somehow all my fault. Had he been shunned by the cool set as a result of his inexplicable decision to go out with a nobody from Year Eight? And there was a part of me – the uncharitable part, I suppose – that thought it served him right. He’d broken my heart; I’d ruined his life. No more than he deserved. Except I didn’t really believe that, not at all. The part of me that had been his best friend for those five glorious weeks was terribly worried about him. Still, I resisted the temptation to seek him out and tried, as best I could, to put him out of my mind.

On New Year’s Eve, however, that was never going to be possible. Particularly as I had nothing more exciting than dinner at home with Charles and Mum to distract me. They’d been seeing each other since the summer. Well, that was the official line, anyway. They’d been ‘spending time together, just as friends’ since about five minutes after Dad left. It was a bit unseemly. In the early days, particularly in the wake of my break-up with Julian, Mum and I had fought about it quite a bit. It only took a couple of drunken late-night visits from Dad to get me back on her side, though. Why wouldn’t she want to be with someone like Charles – quiet, considerate, with a surprisingly dry sense of humour (and a doctor, too) – when the alternative was my permanently pissed-off, unreasonable father?

Plus it was hard not to like Charles. He’d been really nice to me, and not in an annoying, I’m-trying-to-replace-your-father or (even worse) an I’m-trying-to-be-your-best-friend way. He was just friendly. He included me. When he and Mum were going to the cinema, he always asked if I wanted to come along too, even if the film was an 18 and I wasn’t really allowed, and even though he knew I’d say no (seriously, who goes to the cinema with their parents?), and whenever I did say no, which was always, he never pressed the point. He just said, ‘All right then. Shall we bring you some wine gums?’

And he’d lent me a ton of books. He had a much better selection than had ever been available in our house, including loads of stuff I’d never heard of, like The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis which was really shocking and explicit. I actually wasn’t all that sure I liked it very much, but it was probably the sort of challenging thing I ought to be reading.

Best of all, though, he made Mum really happy. It wasn’t until I saw her with him, completely relaxed, always laughing, that I realised just how unhappy she’d been before. I suppose I hadn’t noticed it, because it crept up on us over the years, but we’d become quite fearful in our day-to-day lives. And now Dad was gone we both became louder, messier, more chaotic, more ourselves.

Even so, I was still annoyed that Charles was coming for dinner on New Year’s Eve. I’d imagined it would just be Mum and me, and that would be something different. Maybe we could talk a bit, about Dad, maybe Mum could help me understand why whenever I called him he sounded disappointed. He’d pick up and go, ‘Hello?’ and I’d say, ‘Hi Dad, it’s Nicole’ and then he’d go, ‘Oh.’ And he never asked how I was getting on at school, or anything like that. He always said, ‘How’s your mum? She doing all right is she?’

Charles arrived just before seven brandishing a copy of Marco Pierre White’s White Heat.

‘Makes a change from Delia Smith, don’t you think?’ he asked cheerily. ‘You want to help out with the cooking?’ In a low voice he added, ‘I won’t even bother asking your mother.’

‘Not really,’ I replied grumpily. For god’s sake! Wasn’t it bad enough that I had to stay in on New Year’s Eve with my mother and her boyfriend? Now I had to help in the kitchen?

‘Oh, go on, Nic,’ Charles said. ‘We’re having scallops and langoustines with cucumber and ginger, followed by noisettes of lamb with fettuccine of vegetables and tarragon jus.’

‘All right then,’ I said, trying my best not to roll my eyes at him (Mum hated that). I didn’t like to admit that I had no idea what he’d just said.

And to my surprise, as I chopped shallots and thinly sliced a thumb of ginger (ingredients entirely alien to our kitchen), and as Charles poured me half a glass of champagne and talked to me about The Handmaid’s Tale, which I was due to study in English next term, I found myself having quite a good time. Dinner turned out to be delicious, Mum was in a great mood, we had a Keanu Reeves double bill on video (My Own Private Idaho and Point Break – a special treat for me), so it really wasn’t so bad after all.

And then, just before eleven, the doorbell rang and my stomach churned. Dad. It had to be. And he’d have been in the pub a good few hours by now. Charles paused the video and got up to go to the door, but Mum stopped him. I tried to follow her out, but Charles put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Let’s give it a minute, eh?’ The pair of us stood in the living room, just behind the door, poised to spring out and save her.

She opened the door and then I heard her cry out, ‘Oh my god!’ and my whole body went cold. Something very bad was about to happen. Charles charged out into the hallway in front of me, I grabbed the phone, ready to dial 999. I heard her say again, ‘Oh my god, what happened to you?’

Phone in hand, I ran into the hall. Mum and Charles were in the doorway, blocking my view.

‘What is it?’ I called out, trying desperately to quell the panic in my voice. ‘Is Dad all right?’

‘It’s not Dad, love,’ Mum said, and as she did she and Charles parted slightly, allowing the person at the door to step into the hall. I watched, dumbstruck, as she and Charles ushered Julian into the house. Julian, dirty and dishevelled, his shoulders heaving, his right eye swollen shut, blood all over his face. I burst into tears.

Mum took him upstairs to clean him up. I hopped around outside the bathroom, calling out. ‘What happened? What’s going on? Open this door! Mum! I need to see him. He’s my friend!’

Eventually Charles came upstairs, handed me a cup of tea and persuaded me to go downstairs, and an agonising ten or fifteen minutes later, Mum and Julian joined us in the kitchen. The four of us sat around the kitchen table for a minute or two, nobody saying anything, everyone sipping their tea. Julian looked horrendous. The right side of his face was swelling up, his skin turning an angry purplish red. His lower lip was split; he dabbed at it occasionally with a tissue. I couldn’t take my eyes off him; he hadn’t once looked over at me.

After what seemed like an age, Mum spoke. ‘I think I should call your parents, Julian.’

‘Please don’t, Mrs Blake.’ He looked stricken. ‘I don’t want to talk to them now.’

‘They’ll be worried about you,’ Mum said.

‘No they won’t. Not yet. They won’t be expecting me till after midnight.’

‘Well, I’m going to have phone them some time.’

‘Not yet, please.’

There was another moment or two of silence interrupted by tea slurping, and then Charles said, ‘At any rate we ought to call the police.’

‘No!’ Julian jumped to his feet. ‘You can’t do that. It’ll only make it worse.’

‘Julian, you’ve been badly beaten, you can’t just let this go …’

‘I won’t press charges,’ he said. He looked as though he might start to cry.

‘Julian …’

He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘Thanks for the tea, Mrs Blake. I’ll get out of your hair now.’

I grabbed his arm as he turned to leave. ‘Just hang on,’ I said, and for the first time he looked straight at me. ‘Maybe Jules and I could have a chat alone for a minute,’ I said. He reached out his hand and brushed away the tear rolling down my cheek. ‘Please, Mum?’

So there we were again. Julian and I, sitting on my bed at a few minutes from midnight. We sat in silence while he smoked a cigarette, then he threw it out of the window and took my hand.

‘How are you, Nic?’ he asked, staring down at the bedspread.

‘Julian, what on earth is going on? Who did this?’

‘I’m so sorry I hurt you,’ he said, still not meeting my eye, ‘I never wanted to. I just … I just didn’t know what to do.’

‘What to do about what?’

‘Everything.’ He let go of my hand and got to his feet.

‘Don’t go, Jules. Please tell me.’

He stood with his back to me, all attention apparently focused on the Klimt on the opposite wall.

‘I went to a party at Craig’s house,’ he said at last.

‘Tonight?’

‘Yeah. And … I’ve been thinking about this for ages … I needed to talk to someone … It was totally the wrong time of course, it was f*cking stupid, but I had a couple of beers and just thought, you know what? F*ck it. Craig’s a friend, we’ve known each other for ages.’

‘Okay,’ I said, completely mystified as to what the hell he was talking about.

‘So, we went outside for a spliff and I told him.’

‘Told him?’

‘That I’m gay.’ He turned around and smiled at me, the saddest smile I’d ever seen. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. ‘But then, you knew that already.’

‘No I didn’t,’ I said, finally finding my voice. ‘I had no idea …’

‘Nic. You must have known …’

‘Is that why … that’s why you broke up with me. That’s why you didn’t want me …’

He sat back down on the bed and put his arms around me. ‘I wanted to want you,’ he murmured into my hair. ‘I really wanted to.’

For a while we stayed like that, our arms wrapped tightly around each other, both of us crying a little. Finally, we broke the embrace, blew our noses and giggled a bit, embarrassed. From downstairs I could hear the countdown to midnight on the television.

‘Happy New Year, Nic,’ Julian said as they reached zero, gingerly giving me a kiss.

‘I can’t believe Craig did this to you,’ I said, gently touching his lip.

‘Oh, he didn’t. He was totally cool about it. He was actually really nice, told me he was quite relieved – they’d been worried that I’d become a Christian or something.’

‘So who then?’

‘Turns out Craig’s brother, who is an absolute f*cking tool, overheard the whole conversation. He was lurking in the bushes or something, the complete freak. Anyway, he was there with a bunch of his retarded mates who apparently don’t like gay boys all that much. When Craig and Al went to the offie to get some more beers, his brother and the rest of the cowardly Cro-Magnons took me outside and gave me a good kicking.’

‘Bastards! You have to tell the police, Jules.’

‘It’ll make it worse, Nic. It’ll create all kinds of hassle between me and Craig – his brother might be a prat but he’s still his brother. I’m going to need my friends, Nic. You know what it’s going to be like at school. I really don’t want to get the police involved. Okay?’

‘All right,’ I said, feeling that I was letting injustice prevail, ‘but there’s no way Mum’s not going to ring your parents.’

‘I can’t face my dad yet,’ he said in a small voice. ‘That’s why … that’s why I came here. I knew I could count on you, I knew that even though I hurt you and even though we haven’t spoken for ages, I knew you’d understand, because that’s just the kind of person you are. I knew that if I was with you, I’d be okay.’

I left Julian in my room and went downstairs to persuade Mum to ring Julian’s parents to ask if he could stay with us for the night.

‘If you just say that he’d had a couple of beers and got into a bit of a fight, but that he’s fine, he’s just sleeping it off …’

‘Nicole, I am not lying to Julian’s parents.’

‘But … it isn’t even really a lie. He did have a couple of beers, he did get into a fight. He doesn’t want to talk to his dad yet.’

Mum chewed on her nails nervously. To his credit, Charles stayed out of it. I’d just about got her to agree when there was another knock on the door.

‘Shit,’ my mother and I said in unison.

‘Don’t answer it,’ I whispered to her.

‘He’ll have seen the lights …’

‘Hello?’ a voice called out from the porch, and it wasn’t my father’s.

‘Maybe it’s Craig,’ I said, edging in front of Mum to get to the door first.

It wasn’t Craig. On the doorstep stood a tall, dark-haired man holding a motorcycle helmet in his hand. I’d never seen him before, but he was instantly familiar to me, with Julian’s high cheekbones and long lashes, just situated on an older, more world-worn face. And while Julian’s eyes were brown and soulful, this person’s eyes were green. Bleary, a little bloodshot, but definitely green.

‘Hello, young lady,’ the man said, giving me a rakish smile. ‘You’re up past your bedtime, aren’t you?’

Past my bedtime? ‘Who the hell are you?’ I demanded, annoyed.

He laughed. ‘Is your mum in?’

‘Seriously,’ I said, really pissed off now, ‘who are you?’

‘Name’s Aidan,’ he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. He had the faintest trace of a Glaswegian accent, that and something else, Manchester maybe. ‘I’m sorry to call so late, but I understand you’re giving refuge to my young cousin.’

‘You’re Julian’s cousin?’

‘That’s right. I was meant to pick him up from the party, but they told me he’d left. Said I might be able to find him here. I didn’t realise he had a girlfriend.’

‘I’m not his girlfriend,’ I said. ‘I’m his ex.’ Aidan found this inexplicably funny. ‘He’s staying here tonight,’ I told him.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Aidan said, stepping a little closer to me and peering over my shoulder into the house. He smelt of lemons and cigarettes. Weird combination. I stepped across him to stop him looking into the house, folding my arms across my chest.

‘He’s staying here tonight,’ I repeated.

Aidan started to laugh again. ‘Any chance I could speak to him then?’

‘I’ll go and see if he wants to talk to you,’ I said, and turned on my heel, closing the door in Aidan’s face. Annoying bastard, I thought, and yet I could feel my face colouring and my heart racing. It’s just because he looks like Jules, I thought. He’s patronising and smug. And really old.

Upstairs, I found Jules sitting at my dressing table, examining his facial injuries in the mirror.

‘Can I stay?’ he asked anxiously when I appeared.

‘I think so, but you have to go downstairs and talk to your annoying cousin first.’

‘Oh crap! Aidan. Shit, I forgot all about him. He said he’d pick me up after the party.’ Then he grinned at me. ‘Why did you say he was annoying? What did he do?’

‘He’s just … really patronising,’ I said, but I could feel myself blushing again.

‘Okay,’ Julian said, still smiling at me, a little quizzically. ‘I’d better go and talk to him.’

Julian and his cousin talked outside. I watched them from behind the curtain in the living-room window. Jules telling his story, shuffling from foot to foot, every now and again pausing, his head in his hands; Aidan, leaning against his motorbike, smoking, listening passively. Until, presumably at the key point in the story, he threw the cigarette down and started to yell.

‘Why didn’t you call me? I would have come straight away.’ Then he put his motorcycle helmet on and swung one long leg over the bike

‘Where are you going?’ I could hear Julian ask him.

‘To sort those f*ckers out,’ he replied, kick-starting the bike into life.

After that, I couldn’t hear anything they were saying over the noise of the engines, I could just see Julian gesticulating, obviously pleading with him not to do anything stupid. Fat chance, I thought to myself. Aidan looked like the sort of guy for whom stupid – or at the very least reckless – came naturally.

I was just wondering whether I ought to go out and intervene when I heard the front door slam and, to my horror, Mum strode out into the driveway, and I could hear her yelling over the engine noise.

‘Enough!’ she shouted, holding up her hands. Aidan cut the engine. ‘You,’ she said, addressing Aidan, ‘can get going now. And I don’t want to hear about you turning up at Craig’s parents’ place in the middle of the night. Julian, go inside. I’ve spoken to your mum, it’s all right for you to stay. But you can go to bed right now. I’ve made up the bed in the spare room.’

Despite my embarrassment, I couldn’t help smiling. The two boys, instantly recognising they were no match for my mother, did exactly what they were told. Aidan started up his motorcycle once more, and rode off at a sensible speed, while Julian came back into the house and hurried straight upstairs to bed.

It was about just after one when I heard my mother’s bedroom door close and realised it was safe to sneak out. I tiptoed down the hall, pushed open the door to the spare room and slipped inside.

‘Are you awake?’ I whispered.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘I think so.’

‘Do you want to talk?’

Julian flung back the bedspread in reply, and I crept into bed, nestling myself up against him.

‘Shall we do resolutions?’ he asked me.

‘You first.’

‘Okay, at number one I had “come out to my friends”, so I’ve jumped the gun a bit on that one. Number two, “come out to my parents”.’

‘Your parents are good people, Jules, they’ll be fine.’

‘Mum will. Dad’s going to be disappointed. I know he won’t want to be, but he won’t be able to help himself.’

I slipped my arm underneath his body and squeezed him.

‘Not too hard,’ he mumbled. ‘I might have a broken rib.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Number three: quit smoking.’

‘You had that last year.’

‘I’ll probably have it next year, too.’

‘Four: really concentrate on work. I really want to go to St Martin’s next year, and I’m going to need As to get in.’

‘You’ll have no problem getting in, Jules. You’re so talented.’

He kissed the side of my head in the dark, squeezed me a little tighter.

‘And five: well … It was going to be to make things right with you. But maybe … I don’t know … Do you forgive me, Nic?’ There were tears in his voice, and I started to cry, too. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you …’

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t around when you needed me.’

We lay in silence for a bit, arms wrapped around each other, my heart full, completely safe. I told him my resolutions, and then I got up to go back to my room.

‘I’d better not fall asleep here,’ I told him. ‘Mum will kill me.’

‘You did just tell her I’m gay, didn’t you?’

‘She’ll still kill me.’

‘Okay.’

‘Will you be all right?’

‘I’ll be fine. Night, Nic.’

‘Night.’

I tiptoed back to my room and crawled into bed, falling asleep almost instantly. I dreamed that Julian and I were on holiday, riding through a desert somewhere on a motorbike. The sun was setting and we stopped to take pictures, but when Julian took off his motorbike helmet I realised that his eyes were green, not brown. It wasn’t Jules at all, it was Aidan.